Hair salon software: what should it do?
What hair salon software should do: a diary with processing time, online booking with no fee per booking, a till per stylist and findable colour formulas.
In short: software for a hair salon should show your diary the way a stylist works, with processing time. It should let clients book themselves, take payments per stylist and keep your colour formulas in a way you can find them again. And your data should stay yours. Below, part by part, what to look for, and how HairConnect does it.
A diary that knows processing time
A colour is not a ninety-minute block. The stylist works for half an hour, then the colour processes, and in that time they cut another client. Software that sees it as one long block keeps your diary busy for nothing. In HairConnect, a service has a duration and a processing time: the processing time occupies the client, not the stylist. More in the article on processing time.
Online booking with no fee per booking
Always ask whether you pay per online booking or per message sent. Your booking page is your busiest channel; you do not want to pay for it by the piece. With HairConnect, an online booking or a confirmation or reminder email costs nothing extra, and a client does not have to sign in to book. The rest is in the article on online booking systems.
A till that counts per stylist
One client, two stylists, one bill: at the end of the month, the takings per person still have to add up. In HairConnect, every till line carries the stylist who did the work, and VAT is calculated per line, not over the total. A closed receipt no longer changes: a mistake is put right with a reversing entry, so both stay visible.
On the law in Belgium: the registered cash register system (the “white till”) covers restaurant and catering services, and hairdressers are not mentioned. E-invoicing is a different matter: since 1 January 2026, Belgian VAT-registered businesses send each other structured e-invoices, though not to private clients. HairConnect sends them over Peppol to your business clients. The full story, with the official sources, is in the article on cash registers and e-invoicing.
Colour formulas you can find again
If your formulas sit in a free text box, you find them when you look up the client, but you cannot calculate anything with them. HairConnect always keeps the raw text exactly as it was typed, and also reads it into brand, product, grams and developer. That lets backbar usage come off your stock. Why that matters: the article on colour formulas.
Stock, hours and reports
- Stock: not just a number per product, but the movements behind it. Deliveries per supplier, and the usage that follows from the colour formula.
- Staff: rotas, leave in the same diary and a time clock on the salon iPad. Anyone who is not working cannot be booked online either.
- Reports: takings per stylist, occupancy and an export for your accountant, without a detour through a spreadsheet.
Your data stays yours
Article 20 of the GDPR gives you the right to get your data back in a machine-readable format, and a supplier in principle has one month to do so. Ask before you sign what that export looks like. How to request it: getting your salon data out.
Five questions for a demo
| Question | Why |
|---|---|
| How do you show a colour with processing time? | Otherwise your diary fills up with blocks in which you could actually be working. |
| Do I pay per booking, per message or per stylist? | Then the bill grows with how busy you are. |
| Can I see takings per stylist without doing sums? | That is the basis of any pay or commission arrangement. |
| What happens to my old colour formulas? | Years of history are your capital; it should not come across by halves. |
| How do I get my data back if I leave? | A supplier who will not say so clearly makes switching expensive. |
What HairConnect costs, and what it leaves out
One price: € 59 per salon per month, or € 35 if you work alone, excluding VAT. Unlimited staff, every part included, cancel any month. There is no SMS, no deposit at booking, no web shop and no service packages. Everything is on the features page and the pricing page; what other packages charge, with sources, in the comparisons.